Little Leaf Literary Journal

by Laura Theis

my sister dreams she is a garden and running barefoot down her 
winding paths I know not to step on the sharp stones 
and where her early snowdrops grow

my sister dreams she is a garden and I am a snail 
out in her dew until the sun burns the moisture away
so I must to burrow deeper in order to stay

my sister dreams she is a garden and 
I’m the trunk of a birch tree that’s losing its leaves
and I’m its bare branches and I am its grief

my sister dreams she is a garden and I am a story 
beloved by the snow I am what is lost to the silence 
all that is covered and hidden below

Laura Theis’ work appears in Poetry, Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, Magma, Oxford Poetry, Rattle, etc. Her Elgin Award-nominated debut “how to extricate yourself”, an Oxford Poetry Library Book of the Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize.  Her follow-up “A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things” won the Live Canon Collection Prize and received the Society of Authors’ Arthur Welton Award. Other accolades include the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, Poets & Players Prize, Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, AM Heath Prize, and Mogford Prize.